Dream On
by WaichiMakkura
Summary: BJ splits the human part of his soul from something monstrous, and begins to forget who he is. Lydia & the Juices must figure out why, or he will 'move on'. Meanwhile, his monster has the upper hand. BJxLyds, Movie/Show
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Oh look kids, the start of yet another fan-fic…Please don't hurt me! *hides for fear of being stoned to death by the people who watch her for other stories that are in sore need of updates***

**Okay, so here's the deal. Fan-fiction to me, is something therapeutic I do when RealLife!tm becomes so dreary that I need something fun and frivolous to do to keep me from turning into a drooling zombie. So if I start to write something, and then stop for awhile, it's because I'm being beat over the head to do something constructive that will put food in my belly, instead of goofing off. =p**

**That aside, this latest literary escapade is the result of me re-watching a cartoon show that I was once obsessed with as a 5-yr-old. You should know which one I'm talking about. Then I went and re-watched the film.**

**A few things followed this;**

**1. I realized that BJ and Lydia could actually be cute together, and that the amount of hints for canon-romance in the cartoon is staggering. (In today's heavily-censored world, I doubt the show would have ever gotten a first season, let alone 4.)**

**2. I did tons of research on the 14th-15th centuries.**

**3. I learned more about the original script for the movie than I ever wanted to know.**

**4. I figured that since I had gathered all this nerdy character-related information, I may as well put it to use.**

**The title for this fic is based upon the Depeche Mode song of the same name. Check out the lyrics, please.**

***

_One big, dark…room. Lyds was right when she compared life to that. _Beetlejuice thought to himself, lying awake in his Roadhouse coffin-bed, and feeling like he was following some senseless routine.

But of course it was senseless. Sleep-deprivation wasn't going to kill him after all, but there was a certain comfort in having a 'resting place' for the dead.

_It's a room that locks you inside. It's a barrier. That wall between life and death. I'd like to tear it down…I guess I already did, just a little. Poked a hole through it so I could see._

He glanced over at the bedside table, looking at the tiny picture frame that held a snapshot of Lydia. Smart, beautiful, sweet Lydia. Then he looked down at his fingers, clasped together over the hill of his stomach. The red-tinted claws seemed to sneer at him, prompting images of hand-wrought violence.

_Caught me bloody red-handed, you did._ The joke wasn't funny anymore.

He felt a dizzying lurch inside his own mind as he yanked it forcibly away from such thoughts.

_Gotta be presentable for the kid…Even if she's not a kid now. _

Something in him struggled a bit, writhing like a hooked worm. A part of him that screeched in rage, demanding to be an active part of his psyche. It flashed him an image of crimson points trailing down soft ivory, dead-purple laving live-pink. He groaned, then squashed the darkness ruthlessly until it squealed for mercy.

Soon after came a loud shouting match with himself. Anyone who happened to peek inside would have likened him to the dog that chased it's own tail, then yelped whenever it actually sank it's teeth in.

He tugged on his hair in frustration, glaring balefully at the portrait of Lydia like some kind of wild-eyed demon. Love. Hate. Two emotions said to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, but with equal binding power.

_Can't lose my babes. Can't lose myself. What's a ghoul to do?_

Quite a problem, indeed. Certainly ghosts could change, but they only did so slowly. Spending the past eight years reeling himself in, trying to make the little breather happy…It wouldn't have been so hard for a six-hundred-plus year-old gheist like himself, if the kid hadn't gone off and _grown_.

He felt sexually-frustrated under normal circumstances, and that was with drop-dead-gorgeous, total strangers he could care less about. Then came along a soul who managed to make him happy for more than the five seconds it took him to laugh about a prank. A girl who could make him smile without lifting up her skirts. Someone who made him feel like he could be more than just a pest. Lydia, who liked him in spite of himself, even though they had met on the worst of terms.

Now here was his libido and his destructive nature, threatening to rear it's ugly head and scare her off for good. He had to separate himself, place his id in neat little boxes with locks and keys.

Normally, he would speak a phrase, like chanting a spell. Words helped him direct his power, focus it into coherent thoughts and pictures. This time was different. A simple phrase wouldn't be enough to accomplish the task at hand, and the desire in him was strong enough that his abilities took effect by thought alone.

_Human or monster? Why do I have to contain both?_

There was a tight, stretching sensation on his back, and something internal was pulling up towards the ceiling. He stared, dumb-founded at the color flowing from his hands and clothes to travel behind him. There was a moment of stillness, and he took the opportunity to wiggle his de-clawed fingers in glee.

Then something exploded from his shoulder and he screamed in agony. The other shoulder went, in a spurt of dark, sludgy liquid. The ghost started crawling shakily on his hands and knees, knocking over furniture as he jerked and swiped at objects in reflex.

He eventually doubled over into a ball, waiting for whatever was happening to be over. There were tugs and slick snaps along each of his rib bones and vertebrae, and then a series of clicks as something wobbled along the wooden floor like a newborn fawn, dripping fluid as it went.

Beetlejuice turned his head feebly to see what it was, and then sat up slowly with wide eyes. If ever a thing could be called a monster, this was it. It bore no trace of humanity, walking about on six jointed limbs, and sporting a large set of mandibles that looked like a combination of various different insects all layered together. It had stolen his stripes and the red of his nails, wearing the colors like a butchered zebra. The creature looked like a giant beetle, save for a long, maggoty set of worm-tails that trailed out of it's abdomen, and the dozens of filmy human eyes of all sizes and colors that covered it's body.

Beetlejuice's first, hysterical thought was;

_It slices, it dices, it never needs sharpening and it keeps unwanted guests away…No assembly required. _

The thing turned around and sized him up, the eyes squinting dully in his general direction. It opened it's jaws and skittered heavily toward him, drooling acidic saliva onto the floor. He shrieked in alarm and pointed a finger at the floor, turning it into a large square of fly paper.

His monstrosity shrilled at him in anger, twisting itself into the trap as it struggled. He wasted no time watching it and ran straight for his bedroom mirror.

"Lydiaaa!"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Please read and review if you like it, or if you want to offer constructive criticism. :D

***

Lydia Deetz heard the familiar scream bounce around inside her head and cracked open a sleepy eye. She glanced over at her digital clock, which glowed a red "3:45" a.m. back at her. She grumbled and rubbed her face, muttering the three 'B' words and sitting up in bed.

Beetlejuice practically dove out of her vanity mirror and landed on his face in an undignified heap. He peeled his face, like a piece of chewed bubblegum, off of the floor and smoothed the flattened features back to normal with his hands.

Lydia stared at him, fully-awake now, and wondered what kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into this time. She slipped out of bed and circled around him, observing his new appearance with mild alarm.

He looked…normal. He was wearing a simple long-sleeved shirt, and a plain pair of pants. Both items of clothing were a dusty color, like reddish-brown clay. He was also barefoot, and the red-tips of his digits were gone. His fingers and toes looked round and fleshy, just like any living human's would be. His eyes had lost their yellowed and bloodshot look, and the irises were a bright emerald color.

Beetlejuice flashed her a smile and she saw that his teeth were still crooked, but they didn't stick out so far and they were yellowed like old paper, instead of moldy-looking.

"Beej…What did you do to yourself?" she pondered aloud, forgetting all thoughts of scolding him for waking her at this hour.

The ghost frowned and procured a small hand-mirror from inside his sleeve, turning his head this way and that to get a better look at himself. He touched his face, stared at his hands, looked down at his clothes, and wriggled his toes.

Lydia lifted up a piece of his hair and saw that his ears had lost their points as well. He smiled again, made a happy noise, and tossed the mirror behind him in favor of hugging her.

"Lyds! I'm human!…Well, a dead human, but you can't have everything."

"I can see that, but…why?….And why were you screaming bloody murder just a little while ago?"

His expression faltered, and he fidgeted a little.

"Uh, well…Ya see…" he tugged at his collar and chuckled nervously.

"Beetlejuice…"

"Okay, okay! See, I was think'in about what it would be like to be human, and spend more time out here with you. I mean, somebody's bound to put two and two together on ol' Betty and Mr. Beetleman, am I right?" he waved his arms as if fending her off, and half-lied through his teeth.

"That's sweet of you. But it still doesn't explain why you called me." Lydia said flatly, holding her ground. She couldn't read his thoughts, but her intuition had rarely led her stray. Right now it was as if he was holding up a giant sign that spelled the words, in sloppy red letters; _I'm lucky I'm already dead._

He didn't get a chance to come up with another excuse however, as a spiny, jointed leg stabbed it's way out of the mirror. Lydia and the ghost both screamed at the same time.

"Beetlejuice, what is that thing!?" she demanded of him, as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from the mirror.

"I d-didn't think it was gonna follow me here!" his voice was a squeak.

"B! Tell me what's going on!"

This situation of danger seemed completely different from any others that Lydia had encountered, and it left her feeling numb with terror. This wasn't a sandworm. This wasn't an angry Neitherworld citizen. This wasn't BJ with an illness or some mutinous body-part. She had no idea what this was.

A few more spindly, insectoid legs joined the first and prodded the room, like they were searching for something in the dark.

"Beej!" she was starting to sound irate. Beetlejuice wasn't quite sure how to explain.

"Lyds, I don't think this is the time for a long-winded explanation!"

"BEETLEJUICE!!"

The ghost whose name had just been called wanted to cry out in protest, but it died with his power in the land of the living. They teleported back into the Roadhouse.

The first thing Lydia registered was her friend shoving her towards the door that led to the outside. Next there was a sharp wind, and then a yelp as the creature hooked a claw around the ghost's middle and yanked him away. She heard scuffling sounds, fabric being shredded, and a soft crunch; followed by a scream that made her ears want to bleed. It was all very fast.

Lydia whipped her head around and took in the sight of it, numbness replaced by a flood of steely-cold. It was eating him. That monster was _eating_ her best friend.

She grabbed the closest blunt object she could find, the leg of a dilapidated chair, and charged at the thing, swinging with all her might at it's limbs. The piece of neitherworld wood quickly splintered and then stuck to red-tinted spines.

It turned away from it's meal and hissed at her, then paused. It let out a raspy, rattling sound that she realized was laughter and spread it's mandibles in a buggy grin.

"_Edgar Allen Poe's daughterrr…hah, haa…_" the creature addressed her, in what sounded like two voices speaking at once. One was deep and gravelly, the other manic and tinny. Most disturbing to her, however, was that she'd heard those voices before. They both sounded like Beetlejuice.

Come to think of it, this thing was stripy, and it's claw-tips were dyed in red. She shuddered.

Her friend groaned from somewhere a few feet away, on the floor, and the monster-bug turned back towards him.

"NO! Leave him alone!" she yelled at it, this time picking up a metal grate from a fireplace that was set into the wall and hurling it at Beetlejuice's attacker. The blow knocked it off balance a little, but it quickly corrected itself and placed it's attention back on her.

It picked her up with a claw, almost casually, and then tossed her onto the living room couch. Her landing kicked up a pile of dust and she choked on the particles, batting the cloud away. When it cleared, the monster was leering at her with that same unsettling smile.

"_Don't belong here_." It said, the deeper voice taking dominance.

"Who doesn't belong here? Me?" she asked tentatively.

It laughed, then jerked a claw toward it's own body. Then another in the injured ghost's direction.

"_We don't belong here. Need to be complete, to get back home_."

"I don't understand…" Lydia said, shaking her head slowly.

The monster cupped her chin with one of it's claws, and seemed to sneer, even though it had no lips to curl.

"_You weakened me, brat. This universe weakened me. That damn worm weakened me_."

It turned and gestured toward it's better half, who was just starting to get up off the ground.

"_I'd be happy to leave you with your faithful, obedient mutt_." the creature laid one of it's limbs heavily on the ghost, effectively pinning it's prey again.

"_But thanks to you, I can't tear open a door on my own. I need to absorb him and take control_."

Lydia was aghast.

"There must be some other way! Please don't hurt Beetlejuice!"

The monster snarled at her in fury, flailing it's limbs toward the ceiling for emphasis.

"_I AM BEETLEJUICE_! _BEETLEGEIST! BEETLEGUISE_!_ The great red giant of Orion's armpit! The death-bringing Beetle of Bedlam! Devourer of the weak and wriggly!" _In it's tantrum, both voices flared up, shaking the very walls of the house.

"And I'll be glad to be rid of you. Rest in pieces." The ghost said suddenly, taking advantage of the moment and aiming a charged finger at his monstrosity. The beast first went slack and slipped into unconsciousness, then came away at the joints like an old suit of armor, clattering together in a heap of parts.

Lydia gasped and rolled off the couch in her haste, scrambling over and embracing her friend.

"Beej! Please be okay…" her eyes stung, and she buried her face in his shoulder.

"I'm not 'Beej', Lydia. My name is Benton."


End file.
